Just Say No to Christmas Displays?

If you tend to like any and all things celebrating the Christmas spirit, this study may be a bit of a downer. Apparently, Christmas displays reduce feelings of well-being and positive mood in people who don't celebrate the holiday. (I know, I know, if your first reaction is anything like mine, it's – they actually did a study on this?! Seriously?) But I kid you not, here's the abstract: 

In two experiments we examined the differential psychological consequences of being in the presence of a Christmas display on participants who did or did not celebrate Christmas (Study 1), or who identified as Christian, Buddhist, or Sikh (Study 2). Participants completed measures of psychological well-being in a cubicle that either did or did not contain a small Christmas display. Across several indicators of well-being, the display harmed non-celebrators and non-Christians, but enhanced well-being for celebrators and Christians. In Study 2, we found that the negative effect of the display on non-Christians was mediated by reduced feelings of inclusion. The results raise concerns about the ubiquitous presence of dominant cultural symbols (such as Christmas displays) in culturally diverse societies. 

No, I don't think we need to go out and immediately eradicate all Christmas displays. But the study does challenge a few assumptions about the harmlessness of certain symbols in public spaces.

But, since Happy Holidays has a kind of empty ring to it, I'm still going to go ahead and say – all positive feelings and good cheer intended – Merry Christmas! 

Conversation with Dawkins

> view of earth as a pale blue dot

After reading, thinking, and writing about the work of Richard Dawkins, I had the unbelievable luck of speaking to him in person!! At the recent Science and Religious Conflict conference, over beef wellington, I got a chance to ask him about the public understanding of science (he held an Oxford chair by that title), popular science book writing (he's now working on a children's book), what role religion plays for him (he calls himself an atheist Anglican), and life in the little town of Oxford. Still reeling from the encounter, I'm going to try to write some coherent thoughts about everything we talked about.

One subject that came up was how somebody should go about communicating science. He thinks there are two main approaches – one that emphasizes the usefulness of science (look what this new pill or piece of technology can do for you!), and the Carl Sagan approach, emphasizing the wonder, awe, and sheer marvel of science. Dawkins suggested that he favored the latter, since it draws people into a longer-lasting appreciation and interest in science that provides more than a fleeting fascination with the latest fad or gadget. He’s probably on to something – a little while ago the NY Times found that its most e-mailed articles tended to be those that inspired awe, particularly science articles.

But what about the usefulness approach? After all, many people may first be introduced to physiology when they get a blood test, to chemistry when they look at the nutrition facts on a cereal box, to electromagnetism when they have to replace some batteries, or light and optics when they’re buying a new camera. A Pew Research Center study found that most people, even if they don’t know basic high-school science facts, still know something about the areas where science is personally relevant to their health and daily lives. So the science we deal with on a day-to-day basis seems like a good starting point for discussion and further curiosity, acting as a bridge into the wider world of science that Sagan championed and Dawkins promotes. One approach may feed the other, and if a combination is possible – the useful and the awe-inspiring, the relevant and the celebratory – so much the better. 

On that note, some words from Carl Sagan about the pale blue dot:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena... Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves... It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Building Peace Conference

Yesterday (Saturday May 15th) was the Building Peace Conference organized by the Oxford Network for Peace Studies, or OxPeace. OxPeace is a "a multi-disciplinary initiative to promote the focused study of the nature of peace, peacemaking, peacebuilding and peacekeeping, in Oxford. It aims to promote relevant research and teaching, and the inter-disciplinary cross-fertilisation of ideas, and to enable the sharing of research between Oxford academics and graduate students and those from other institutions in Britain and abroad, and with scholar-practitioners in the field." Keynote speakers were Professor of Peace Research Johan Galtung and Ugandan human rights lawyer Barney Afako. 

I'll be adding my notes from the conference over the next few days. Highlights from last year's conference, The Serious Study of Peace, can be found here.

Background (from the program):
There is growing interest in academic circles in the questions surrounding the nature of peace. This includes the making, keeping, and building of peace. Peace as a site for academic study raises unique questions and provides a distinctive shape to interdisciplinary endeavour, drawing on politics and international relations, economics, development, environmental studies, war and conflict, anthropology, psychology, law, ethics and theology to name only a few.

The focus on peace adds a fresh dimension to established disciplines and engenders a distinctive interdisciplinary synergy. It has produced an extensive, rapidly growing body of academic literature, and shows potential as a discipline in its own right, embracing all levels from senior research to undergraduate teaching. Much relevant research and teaching  is being done in Oxford. This Conference taps into some of this work, as well as providing a forum for sharing with colleagues from across the world.

Introduction:
Dr Liz Carmichael (St John's College, Theology)
Carmichael began with some introductory remarks about the history and purpose of OxPeace. She described OxPeace as held together by the idea of peace as a worthy academic focus. Its goal is to promote new centers, new institutes, and a new chair of Peace Studies at Oxford (for which they need funding). Carmichael emphasized the need to raise the profile and the study of peace at an elite institution like Oxford, which would lend credibility to peace studies as an academic field in its own right.

First Talk:
Professor Johan Galtung
After the Abolition of Slavery and Colonialism, War as a Social Institution: The Role of England.  An example of Applied Peace Studies

Johan Galtung is currently based near Geneva as co-Director of the Transcend Research Institute,  which he co-founded in 1993. A Norwegian sociologist and ‘father’ of academic peace studies, Johan Galtung founded the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and was its first Director 1959-69. He then became Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Oslo University 1969-78. He is a peace practitioner and prolific researcher, who has held numerous visiting professorships in Europe and the USA.

Galtung began his talk by urging Oxford University to become a “facilitator of solutions.” He described his role as “father of peace studies” in the 1950’s, where he worked to advocate peacebuilding, peacekeeping and peaceguiding. Over the years his work as led him to 10 findings, which he believes can help in the project of de-institutionalizing war:
1. The top will never abolish anything on its own – the top will never degrade itself.
2. Abolition never comes from bottom alone, it needs an enlightened element (often women play a pivotal role here).
3. Consciousness formation is crucial. Consciousness raising is often well performed by churches.
 4. There must be a vision of change, and spirituality can be used as a bridging concept, crossing divisions between religions of east and west. There must be emphasis on the linking of something out there to something in here. Heart and brain go hand in hand.
5. Need unlimited perseverance.
6. Cannot demand synchronicity, or implement change in all places at the same time. We need leading countries to provide the example.
7. Multilateralism (summit meetings) will generally lead to nothing. Galtung gives the example of the recent climate change summit as a failed attempt to implement change. Countries need to show the lead, especially now on the issue of nuclear weapons.
8 and 9. Sometimes heavy politics is necessary. “When someone has new idea, the first reaction is laughter, then suspicion, then a heavy politician who says ‘its been my idea all along’” There is a dialectic of success and failure.
10. There is a heavy price to any change. There will always be resistance from those who claim that if we don’t do this then someone else will. And every action will have often unforeseen consequences.

Galtung turned next to a “middle” position on what we would need to abolish war. After again emphasizing the role played by women, he says change will come from a variety of “middles”. The middle-aged – when they still have physical energy and have not yet solidified their ideas, although he acknowledges it is possible to be middle aged well into one’s 80s. The middle-sexed – who are not lost in narcissistic beauty concerns that take up too much time and effort in our modern society. The middle class – because the upper class is oblivious to problems, and the lower class is too concerned with its own.  The middle-towns – big cities have too many monuments celebrating the grandeur of their city, and growing up in this sort of environment seeps into a certain (righteous) view of world.  The middle-religious – somewhere between a hard religious outlook that is too uncompromising, and a soft religious outlook exemplified by groups like the Quakers. The Anglican church may be intermediary between these two extremes. Finally, middle-politics – that celebrates coalitions and seeks to find ideas that accommodate both sides. The idea of social capitalism or social democracy was itself such a coalition.

Galtung’s concluding remarks reflected on war as a tenacious structure, as opposed to solely dependent on particular actors. There is cooperation between countries in maintaining the war system, and history has shown that we tend to stop war just in time to avoid putting an end to the entire war system. Righteousness makes all players think their views are universal, but it is time for an "intellectual helicopter sweep" to view countries from above and see the larger picture.


Second Talk:
Barney Afako
Grappling with Peace: Reflections on some efforts to deal with violent conflict in Africa

Barney Afako, a scholar-practitioner of peacebuilding, is a leading Ugandan human rights lawyer and transitional justice expert. Currently based in London, he is an adviser to the peace process in northern Uganda and other peace processes in Africa. He is a leading scholar in transitional justice specifically.

Afako began by describing some of his experience in Uganda  working with  local people in small communities. He noted that these people are mainly interested in their futures and those of their children, not in punishing rebels and bringing them to trial. They bring into sharp focus the idea that justice is a much bigger concept than criminality and criminal justice. Therefore it is possible to have a primary focus on bringing an end to violent conflict without giving up the need for accountability. Afako described how he would constantly run into arguments to pursue and nurture the idea of international criminal justice, but this is a far too limited view. In approaching peacebuilding, one cannot escape hard dilemma’s, and one cannot always resolve these dilemmas. But we can try to be prepared to handle these dilemmas. Mediators and peacebuilding practitioners step into the space between law and the local (bridging the gap between international criminal justice and ordinary people). This is a no mans zone, but people who want to make peace need to stand here.

Afako also emphasized the dual role of the state and civil society in the peace process. The state’s influence is both inescapable and utterly crucial. Yes, the state exerts control over any part of peace-building, but it is important to understand that there is no space in which conflict takes place that is not under some aspect of control. Therefore mediators need to keep having conversation with many actors of the state, and this involves going to the top. They need to help states organize themselves to respond to conflict, as well as keep the state cohesive. On the other side, civil society is increasingly mobilized on issues of justice, and lots of people are engaged with peace process. Civil society needs to have a part in the peace process; it needs to be at the table. People in civil society will bring perspective to those around the table. So while it is critical to focus on state, it is important to also focus on people. People without the state will not work, and the state without people will not have support. A mediator needs to carry everyone.

Finally, Afako addressed the importance of looking deeper into any conflict to identify the structural concerns. He says we can’t take our eyes off the parties involved, but we also cannot afford to forget the structural issues. The process of peace goes beyond the signatures on a peace agreement. He advises mediators to keep abreast of social changes so that new conflicts don’t take them by surprise.

Godthink

In Córdoba, Spain you'll find a roman catholic cathedral called the Mezquita (Spanish for "mosque"). The mosque-turned-cathedral was once a roman temple; that is, before it was a Visigoth church. After a few double takes at the minaret-bell tower, you may be inclined, as I was, to mutter something like: "oh, religions...aren't they all essentially the same thing?" And it would be exactly this sentiment that BU professor Stephen Prothero condemns as wholly mistaken (and quite dangerous). 

In his recent article, Prothero describes what he sees as a pervasive notion of religion that "resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture." It's the notion that, when you get down to it, religions are just different paths to the same truth. But he warns that this is false (there are significant differences between religions that can't be glossed over), condescending (denying these differences is just like saying they don't matter) and a threat (only by taking religious differences seriously can we understand the religious conflicts that plague the world).

This naive theological groupthink — call it Godthink — is motivated in part by a laudable rejection of the exclusivist missionary view that only you and your kind will make it to heaven or nirvana or paradise. For most of world history, human beings have seen religious rivals as inferior to themselves — practitioners of empty rituals, perpetrators of bogus miracles, and purveyors of fanciful myths. This way of seeing has given us religious violence from the Crusades and the Holocaust to Rwanda and Nigeria. In response to such violence, the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment popularized the ideal of religious tolerance, and we are doubtless better for it.

I understand what these people are doing. They are not describing the world but reimagining it. They are hoping that their hope will call up in us feelings of brotherhood and sisterhood. In the face of religious bigotry and bloodshed, past and present, we cannot help but be drawn to such hope, and such vision. Yet we must not mistake either for clear-eyed analysis.

When it comes to safeguarding the world from the evils of religion, including violence by proxy from the hand of God, the claim that all religions are one is no more effective than the claim that all religions are poison. As the New Atheists (another species of religious lumpers) observe, we live in a world where religion seems as likely to detonate a bomb as to defuse one. So while we need idealism, we need realism even more. We need to understand religious people as they are — not just at their best but also their worst. We need to look at not only their awe-inspiring architecture and gentle mystics but also their bigots and suicide bombers.

I think Prothero raises a good point – denial of religious differences may be comforting, but it moves from naive to pernicious when it leads to overlooking real problems or incorrectly analyzing a situation. More importantly, any kind of religious "lumping" (favorable or otherwise) skims right over the real complexities and nuances of the various beliefs, doctrines, rituals, social interactions, and institutions that we already lump together in the term "religion."  

Nevertheless, I still think there is a value in emphasizing religious similarities – call me guilty of being drawn to that "reimagination" of the world. Maybe it's possible to reimagine, un-naively...

Pulverizing the Monoliths

> Simplistic, much?

After the article about her new book in the NY Times last week, Barbara Herrnstein Smith (the professor I hold responsible for my interest in all things science/religion related) has written a response. Her sentences are infinitely more articulate than my own, so I've copied some of them here.

"Contrary to what a number of readers concluded from Fish’s description, “Natural Reflections” is not centrally about the truth or value of science or religion and does not argue for their equal authority in different realms of thought or practice. It is centrally about human cognition and argues that certain widely shared cognitive tendencies are exhibited equally by nonscientists and scientists, including some anthropologists and psychologists seeking to explain religion on the basis of evolutionary theory and cognitive science, and also equally by atheists and theists, including some theologians seeking to reconcile science and religion. 

A number of the general cognitive tendencies that I note, like projection, binary thinking and us/them thinking, are prominently displayed in the comments themselves. Especially evident is what I call “cognitive conservatism,” that is, people’s tendency to retain their beliefs, intellectual as well as religious, in the face of what strike other people as conclusively refuting arguments or clearly disconfirming evidence...

Finally and most seriously, I think that the idea of science and religion as counterpoised monoliths deepens prevailing misunderstandings of both. As I emphasize throughout the book, the kinds of things that can be assembled under the term “religion” are exceptionally diverse. They range from personal experiences and popular beliefs to formal doctrines, priestly institutions, ritual practices and devotional icons — Neanderthal burial rites to Vatican encyclicals. The same can be said of “science,” a term that embraces a wide range of quite different kinds of things — general pursuits and specialized practices, findings and theories, instruments and techniques, ideals and institutions (not to mention a share of devotional icons and ritual practices). 

The strong, snappy contrasts between Science and Religion offered in a great many of the comments (and in writings by a few scientists and philosophers that I discuss) depend on understandings of each that are exceedingly vague and, at best, highly selective. Those contrasts would lose much of their intellectual substance and all of their rhetorical bite if the writers drawing them were asked to indicate what specifically, in setting those mighty abstractions in opposition, they were actually talking about...

Science and religion, in Gould’s account, are nicely balanced and occupy equally valuable pieces of land, but they remain monoliths — precisely, as one commentator puts it, “rocks of ages.” In “Natural Reflections,” I seek to pulverize both of those rocks, not in order to annihilate them but in order to reveal their complex, copious, varied, and changing composition. In doing so, I stress their connections with each other, their continuity with other elements of human culture (yes, “Gods” is originally in lower case in the last passage Fish quotes from the book), and also the cognitive dispositions and liabilities exhibited by practitioners and proponents of both — scientists along with theologians, theists along with atheists, and, of course, Professor Fish along with myself."

Related Link:

Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion: 2006 Terry Lectures by Barbara Smith

Oxford

I made it to Oxford. It's beautiful, tiny, intriguing. If cities were subject to Photoshop tools, you'd have to slide the time scale back a few centuries and set the color saturation to 50%. Oh, and then slosh on some sort of melting-snow filter. Although it's neither possible or meaningful, I can't help but compare Oxford to the last foreign city I spent time in. Barcelona is still so much in my mind that it makes for some rather extreme comparisons (size-scale, weather, language).  Let's just say that even if I wasn't exactly looking for a contrast, I sure got one!

Monday I officially start my "short-term student visit" at the Center for Practical Ethics. This involves a visitor card, some desk space, and free reign to the plethora of events, lectures, and seminars at Oxford. First on the list is a seminar called "Evolution and Ethics", which lands smack in the middle of that very interesting cross section of science, morality, and religion:

"Can we, drawing upon our evolutionary history, find within our pre-human ancestors the basic ingredients of human morality? This seminar will examine the prospects and promise of evolutionary theory and some of its implications for religious belief. The participants will first consider the nature of morality and then various ways that evolutionary ethicists have sought to explain human morality." 

Amazing. If I can just manage to get a library card to the Bodleian Library, I can start delving into titles like Darwinian Natural Right and Primates and Philosophers. So much to do – I can barely wait to start! My goal is to post something each day of the seminar, and I'll try to continue that pattern for the rest of my visit (perhaps a bit ambitious, but it's 2010 and I'm aiming high). I'll try to explore some of the ideas I'm reading/learning about – mostly as a way to explain them to myself and work through questions. Of course, I'll also be making some comments on this funny little town where the friendly cashiers call you "love", the coin-sizing system is an utter mystery, and my sense of left and right is called into question every time I cross the street. Cheers.

Science vs. Religion – False Assumption or True Conflict?

I want to look again at the science/religion topic – this time specifically from a science advocacy perspective. In this context, religion poses a problem because it interferes with the acceptance of science by a large portion of the public. Why? Because many people think that science will threaten their religious beliefs. Chris Mooney argues that this is a mistaken assumption. But correct or not, the sentiment is so powerful that it effectively blocks much of the effort by scientists and educators to promote science in the US. Therefore, in order to raise the status of science in our culture, Mooney claims that we will first have to tackle the misconception that science and religion are opposed.

It won’t be easy. The "science vs. religion" narrative is used in media coverage to the point of cliché (the "battle" most recently being fought in schools over the teaching of evolution). It is also continually perpetuated by people on both extreme sides of the debate – religious fundamentalists on the one hand and militant atheists on the other. Meanwhile, the Americans in the middle, those who don’t necessarily posit any inherent conflict between the sciences and religion, are relatively quiet (Mooney dubs them the “silent majority”). The pressure is on the science advocates to encourage the silent majority to speak up. Until they do, we’ll continue to hear only a few voices.

And they’re not the voices that Mooney wants to hear. At least, not the only ones. He admits there is a place for denouncing religion, but it shouldn't take center stage among scientists. Mooney harshly criticizes figures like the popular science blogger PZ Myers and other vocal atheists for their gratuitous attacks on religion (Myers apparently skewed a Eucharist with a rusty nail, chucked it in the trash, and displayed a photo of his “Great Desecration” online, just to make a point). Coming from what the journal Nature has rated as one of the "Top Five Science Blogs", Myers' hostility toward religion only heightens the tension between the scientific community and much of the religious public. Insults and ridicule turn even the religious moderates away from science, all the while giving religious fundamentalists more ammunition (an anti-science creationist can quite easily point to the unholy atheists as proof that science is an attack on their faith). If promoting science is a priority, scientists cannot afford to bolster the science vs. religion narrative – it’s a useless strategy.

It seems clear from Mooney’s arguments that it may be tactically beneficial to take a conciliatory attitude towards religion. In some cases, like teaching evolution, it may be politically necessary to gently woo a religious audience into a natural engagement with science, rather than shoving the “truth” in their faces. But what if the goal is larger than that? Dawkins, for example, has stated that while winning the battle over evolution would be nice, he is fighting a larger war. It is a war over deep truths of the nature of the universe, and in this fight, religion (inasmuch as it claims ownership of these deep truths) really does get in the way of science. For him, the conflict is real, and denying it exists is dishonest and wholly unscientific.

So it looks like we are faced with two competing priorities. Those in Mooney’s camp want to focus on promoting science in American culture by winning political battles, and those in Dawkins' camp want to defend scientific truth at any cost. These are different goals, but I don’t think they require two vastly different strategies of communication. Regardless of the topic of discussion, adopting a disparaging tone usually doesn’t help. But more importantly, spewing “truths” at people, whether about the value of teaching evolution or the falsities of the virgin birth, won’t change their mind. The message must be packaged in such a way as to persuade, which requires “a sensitivity to the state of mind of the audience” (the words of science educator Neil deGrasse Tyson). Combining this sensitivity with the facts, shaping the content and form of a message to best fit the audience’s capacity to receive it, is how communication functions at its best, at any level. Ultimately the most important thing is to keep the channels of conversation open and not prematurely shut down any chance at dialogue by beginning with a fight.

Note that while it doesn't come up in favor of either position on the "science vs. religion" issue,  this strategy spans both the goals of science advocacy and defending scientific "truth". It is about creating impact and being effective – with any audience. And given that the religious audience forms about 80% of the American public, it seems wise to consider how religion will affect the capacity to understand any message from the scientific community.  I think Mooney would agree.

A Paradox, a Paradox!

The story of science and religion has a new narrative – not war, but paradox. Framing their findings in a variation of the typical "conflict thesis", this recent Pew Research Center report describes the relationship between faith and science in the United States as somewhat of an internal contradiction. On the one hand, most Americans hold scientists in high esteem and value the advancements of science and technology. On the other hand, many of these same Americans, because of religious beliefs, are hesitant to accept either widely established scientific theories (such as evolution) or support new technologies (like stem cell research). What follows is rather unsettling:

What is at work here? How can majorities of Americans say they respect science and yet still disagree with the scientific community on some fundamental questions? The answer may be that many in the general public choose not to believe scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict religious or other important beliefs. When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, for instance, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people in an October 2006 Time magazine poll said they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept a contrary scientific finding.

If religious belief continues to take precedence over science, the scientific community will face a formidable challenge to improving scientific literacy and engagement. What stands in their way, as these findings highlight, is an underlying sentiment in America today that science is a threat to religion. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, there are some people (prominent scientists and religious fundamentalists alike) who hold that science is incompatible with or necessarily destructive to religious belief. And when so much media attention is focused around contentious episodes between, for example, creationists and evolutionists, it's not hard to see where this sentiment comes from. But a vast majority of both scientific and religious communities disagree that these two are mutually exclusive. The official position of the National Academy of Sciences as well as many religious organizations is that faith and science can exist together just fine. Therefore, promoting this more accommodationist position may be an effective way to approach the science/religion paradox – and it's a strategy that Chris Mooney argues for in his book, Unscientific America. I want to explore his (apparently rather controversial) ideas about religion in more detail, so that'll be coming soon...

A Case to be Made

We’ve come to expect too much of God. We demand proof, evidence, reasons to believe. We assume that our prayers are being heard, our actions supervised, our world directed by a powerful know it all. We’ve got it all wrong.

At least, Karen Armstrong thinks so. The God she presents in her book “The Case for God” may not be recognizable to many present day believers, but she’s got an immense amount of historical and theological research to back it up. The main claim is this: God is not a being at all. God is a symbol, a gesture towards an ultimate reality that we cannot comprehend, let alone describe. Religion therefore is not about belief, it is a practical discipline that aims to bring us closer to this ultimate reality by ethical action and provide meaning to our lives. We would be woefully amiss to think we can get there by passive belief. Quite the contrary; religion is hard work.

So how exactly did Judaism, Christianity and Islam (the three “sister religions” as Armstrong calls them) end up with the notion of an all-knowing, all-powerful, personalized God? To answer this question it is necessary to trace the idea of God back to pre-modern religions. Beginning with pastoral and Neolithic societies and continuing through the medieval period, the idea of an “ultimate”, “absolute” or “divine” reality was recognized by a vast number of religions under many different names: God, Brahman, Nirvana, or Dao. Much like music – something with immense power that could not be touched or seen – this ultimate reality could inspire such wonder and humility that it reduced a person to silence. In fact, Armstrong tells the story of Brahmin priests who deliberately sought out such silence. They would hold a competition in which each priest would try to give a definition of the divine, whereas his opponents would listen and then respond with their own definition. The winner was the priest for whom no one had a reply – each was speechless, in awe. The ultimate reality was present in this silence, in the realization that words are utterly inept at capturing the true nature of the divine.

While ancient religions may have worshipped other gods (ancient Greece for example had many), they distinguished between gods who were essentially immortal humans, and a greater sense of an ultimate reality. Ancient Israelites took one of these gods and made it (Yahweh) into their chief symbol of the ultimate reality. Even at this point, God still remained a symbol. Sacred texts were not to be taken literally – they pointed to a lesson, a moral, an interpretation beyond their words. The Babylonian Talmud in the 6th century affirmed, “What is Torah? It is the interpretation of Torah.” But Armstrong argues that monotheism did bring us closer to the modern Western conception of God – the worship of a human expression of the divine, rather than the absolute reality that it was supposed to point to.

The shift happened in the 17th century. At this time in the West, science was revolutionizing people’s lives and fundamentally changing their worldview. The scientific method was increasingly seen as the only reliable means of attaining truth, and people began to expect evidence, certainty, and logical proof. This scientific standard spilled over into the realm of religion, and created pressure to find a “proof” for God. Descartes and Newton provided such proof – for them the only way of explaining the magnificent order in the universe was the presence of a divine intelligence. In arguing for the real existence of God, they for the first time provided the church with scientific support for doctrine. It was not long before some began to regard the Bible as the literal word of God (rather than metaphor or interpretation) and God morphed into a type of caring “father figure.”

The false expectation of literal proof for God meant faith was vulnerable to any scientific argument claiming to disprove God. The existential problem that Armstrong sees in so much of the modern religious world is a direct result of this vulnerability. If God hinges on proof and people don’t get the proof they want, atheism is inevitable, at least for some. Therefore when Dawkins claims that “evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip” he is right – but he is trampling on ground that she doesn’t particularly care to defend.

After chronicling the history leading to our modern religious thinking, which she calls simplistic and even infantile at times, Armstrong urges a return to the pre-modern notion of God and a previous understanding of religion. One where nothing can be said of God because he is no thing, and where religion isn’t about answering questions using logic or reason, but rather about dealing with aspects of life for which there are no easy answers. She repeatedly emphasizes the practical nature of religion, saying that there is a need to practice faith, rather than believe in particular doctrine. She says, “religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.”

I admire Armstrong for her refreshingly non-combative account of religion. I find her arguments for religion as a call to ethical action encouraging (and very compatible with recent scientific work into the evolutionary development of religion, which I’ll get to later). She also provides a compelling account of the modern notion of the Judeo-Christian God, and its contrast to the ancient, inexpressible versions of God as ultimate reality. However, I suspect many people, especially in the United States, would not agree with the notion of God that she is talking (or not talking) about. Belief does seem to be a fundamentally important element to religion for some people, and many do want a personal God. In the end, Armstrong certainly makes a case – but for her own God. Whether or not she can convince others is a matter yet to be determined. 

Related:
Man vs. God, a pair of essays in the Wall Street Journal by Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins

Francis Collins, the New Atheists, and God

Obama’s recent nomination of Dr. Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health has spurred a bit of apprehension in the scientific community. Not for any lack of credentials–he has quite a lot of those. He is a distinguished geneticist with a PhD in physical chemistry. He has been a major contributor to genetic research for the last twenty years. He discovered the genetic markers for several diseases. He led the effort to map the human genome.

He is also an evangelical Christian.

While there are notable scientists and intellectuals who advocate the compatibility of science and religion (Brown University’s Ken Miller, for example), others scoff at the idea. They see religion and science as fundamentally contradictory, faith as something akin to a bad habit or superstition that will disappear with enough scientific training. Richard Dawkins, a biologist and outspoken atheist, claims that “science is corrosive to religion”. He is among a growing number of vocal critics of religion called the New Atheists (Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens are some others), who regard religion as pervasive, obnoxious, and downright dangerous to society. So it comes as no surprise that they should have strong reservations about the Collins nomination.

Harris makes his doubts clear in this recent op-ed in the New York Times. While Harris has the habit of hastily dismissing any argument for religion–and in doing so often overlooking the complexities of the issue–he does raise several good points here. The first is about the scope of scientific inquiry. Collins has said “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence.” This is a surprisingly decisive statement for a scientist who has been pushing the bounds of knowledge about the very thing that makes us human: our DNA. And many scientists would argue that while it may not be able to answer all our questions about human nature, science can surely inform the discussion. Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, would certainly think so. In the past few years he has been investigating the origins and evolution of moral intuitions, and is one of many scientists in the fields of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience that have been trying to accomplish exactly what Collins seems to say they can’t.

The second and perhaps more troubling notion is Collins’ complete dismissal of a morality without God. He has said:

“After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the moral law), with free will, and with an immortal soul…If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”

The idea that morality becomes an illusion if it is the result of evolution is, in my view, just plain wrong. We have evolved faculties of perception, emotion, desires–none of which become less “real” when we discover that they were selected for over time. My instinctual fear in reaction to a loud noise may have evolved because it helped my ancestors escape predators, but that does not imply that I am not scared! In fact, it is precisely because of the reality of these evolved faculties that they have made a difference, and thus are still around today. Morality, if it has evolved, does not suddenly disappear.

Furthermore, the notion that God is the source of our “moral law” is troubling because it can quickly turn into (and historically has been used to support) a deeper implication: that without God we can have no morality, and by definition one must believe in God to be a good person. Frankly, this is absurd. You don’t need to look very far to find plenty of counterexamples–history provides an abundance. Empirical tests also provide support: when asked to make judgments about a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas, religious people and atheists tend to answer the same way. Religion just doesn’t seem to have any sort of monopoly on good behavior. While I doubt that Collins actually holds this extreme view, his statements could be used to support it.

So, do Collins’ beliefs matter? Given his history of scientific excellence and leadership, there is little reason to think that Collins will use his appointment to promote his beliefs, or that his religion will interfere with his ability to be an effective director. However, he is in a profoundly influential position as policymaker and spokesperson for science, and will undoubtedly face some decisions with real ethical implications. Some of the most heated bioethical debates are found particularly in his own field of biomedicine: stem cell research, genetic engineering and testing, human enhancement. He will very likely have to confront these issues in the first few years (if not months) of his appointment, and I don’t think I’m the only one uncomfortable with him letting his religious beliefs determine the morally correct course of action. It seems appropriate, then, for the scientific community to press him on how his religion will effect his decision making for the NIH.

Some further links:

A 2006 debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins.
Godless Morality, a paper by Marc Hauser and Peter Singer